Yet No Words Were Spoken
by SandwichesYumYum
Summary: Sometimes, people aren't as quiet as they seem.


Disclaimer: I own it not.

Yet No Words Were Spoken

They stood stock still; sentinels, of a sort, standing opposite one another, gazing across and around the enormous assembly space. Even their heads did not move. They only flicked their eyes back and forth as they gauged the intent of those gathered in this place. It was still early and around half of the seats were empty, but this would change soon enough. It was an important day and their very presence, they hoped, would deter any trouble.

Nobody heard them speak. They didn't. At least, not out loud.

'So, Skywalker, you sure know how to show a girl a good time.' The look she flicked at him across the vastness of this particular governmental floor spoke eloquently of her current view of him and of the profitable work she was very obviously not currently engaged in. He did not reply.

'Seriously, you kidnapped me for this?'

He huffed at her, internally. 'I did not kidnap you, Mara. You offered your assistance.'

He could almost feel her shrug. 'That may be so, but all that blue eyed earnestness when you told me you _really_ needed my help here is turning out to be a bit of falsehood, wouldn't you say? I figure you just want to try to bore me to death. Honestly, I thought we were kind of over the killing each other stage.'

'Mara, I was never _at _that stage.'

If he didn't know better, he would've sworn that she physically stuck her tongue out at him at that very point. Instead, he took the thought for the deed and struggled valiantly for a moment to maintain his composure. Chuckling did not fit the accepted public view of a Jedi Master. Unfortunately.

/-/-/-/

Whilst it was still relatively quiet, one of the local governmental leaders brought her unmarried daughter to meet the great Luke Skywalker. Mara watched with amusement as he was very polite and kind, yet suitably distant to the young woman. She had clearly been up since before dawn, just to make sure she looked her best for him.

It all seemed rather awkward.

What really made it funny, however, wasn't what Mara could see. She could just feel his hidden embarrassment reverberating all around her. She waited until mother and daughter departed, a little crestfallen perhaps, but still rather pleased to be able to tell all of their friends that they had actually met the first of the new Jedi.

She noticed his attention swing back towards herself. She felt his unspoken plea for her to let it lie. Naturally, she ignored it. 'So…does that happen often? You know, the foisting of young women on to you? Because it's _hilarious_.'

She heard a disembodied sigh. 'Too often, Mara. Can we leave it at that?'

'No way, Farmboy. Did she bat her eyelashes at you? Go on, you can tell little old me. There was, wasn't there? Eyelash batting?'

'Mara…'

She interrupted his incoming complaint by mentally batting her own eyelashes. 'Oh, it is _such_ an honour to meet you, Master Skywalker,' she sent vapidly. 'My private rooms are just over there…'

It was like switching a light on. His mood shifted from embarrassed (and not a little sullen) to happy in a heartbeat. In fact, now his only struggle was again not to laugh openly, to maintain the outward appearance of absolute calm. It made her smile on the inside.

'And they say you Jedi folk have no sense of humour.'

/-/-/-/

As more and more people filed into the chamber, Mara's mood took a remarkable turn. Some people had gathered into tightly knit clusters and Luke watched her as her eyes danced from group to group.

She seemed genuinely fascinated, and he could sense her absorbing information at an astonishing rate. 'Bored now, Mara?' he silently asked.

She glanced directly at him for just a moment. 'No, this is great. There are so many different levels of deceit in here. Can't you feel them?'

'Yes,' he replied. And for a moment he was baffled. Then he realised that this was a major difference between himself and his best friend. He found politics to be a trial, something to be endured. Mara, on the other hand, had grown up in a very politically charged atmosphere. She simply couldn't have survived without having the ability to understand and use it.

'Of course, Skywalker. I love it. Politics can be high art, you know.' He hadn't realised he'd been broadcasting so strongly and was about to loosen their bond a little when she noiselessly shrieked at him.

'Oooh, purple alert!' He could hear her mentally clapping her hands in glee. He followed the thread of her attention to a portly man of middle years, bedecked in an expensive and wildly colourful layered outfit topped with an outrageous amount of jewels. He couldn't sense any danger from the man. Apart from possible damage to his own retinas, that is, because nobody should be allowed to wear that much bright yellow. 'What?'

'He has been spending quality time with his pretty young aide, if you take my meaning. Naughty boy.'

He was confused. 'Is that relevant?'

'No. But it is_ interesting_.'

He really didn't think it was. 'Sometimes, Mara Jade, you are such a _girl_.'

'Bite me, Skywalker.' After a couple of moments of serious consideration, he wisely chose not to reply.

/-/-/-/

Everything was coming to order. Most of the seats were now full and the tedious speechifying had begun. They had, as yet, detected no threat to this gathering. Luke Skywalker was curious about something, though. 'Mara?'

'Yes, revered one?'

He ignored the jibe. 'Why did you say 'purple alert'?'

He could feel her smile. 'I assign colours to possible threats or surrounding behaviours. It makes it easier for me to whittle a crowd down to an individual when the target has not been properly physically described.'

This obviously was not tedious. She could sense his keen interest. 'And it works?'

'For me, yes. Look at it this way. Most of my older…work was aimed at specific people, and searching for information from or about one person is where my real strengths lie. But I would often find myself in large groups and while my memory is excellent, it was sometimes quicker for me to think 'purple, green, burnt orange, green, green, ice blue' than to go through all of them by name. You know, in an emergency.'

He nearly actually grinned. 'That's brilliant. Just brilliant.'

She tried not to throw too much smug at him. 'I know.'

He went silent for a while, but was clearly considering adding yet another facet to Jedi training. Poor things. She searched the room again and found no threat. Again.

She was about to start listening to the political debate, which appeared to be reaching a crucial stage, when she felt him reach out to her across the chamber.

'Mara?' His mental tone was subdued.

'Yes?'

He seemed hesitant, worried. 'What colour am I? To you?'

She gave her answer, uncensored and without pause, solemn and sure. 'You aren't a single colour, Luke. _You are light_.' She was shaken when she realised what she had sent to him, almost unbidden, and she quickly shifted her attention back to their surroundings, green eyes flicking. Flicking.

He, on the other hand, was almost overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of warmth and affection, which he promptly shielded not only from her, but from himself. Then he too returned his attention to the room around him, blue eyes flicking. Flicking.

/-/-/-/

She gazed momentarily at the person he had indicated.

'No, I've had business dealings with him before. He may not be the most clean cut of gentlemen, but he's safe. Plus he knows me, so right now he's confused and all you're picking up is him leaking a bit of shifty.'

'Leaking a bit of shifty? Seriously, Mara, I can't take you anywhere.'

'It's OK, Skywalker. My dealings with him were legitimate. Well, sort of.' She sent him a quick image from her memory, of a transaction in an especially run down looking cantina some years previously. When, in a flash of emerald gauze, he realised what she had, or rather had not, been wearing at the time, he unwillingly radiated a pulse of surprise for a split second.

She rolled her eyes at him, imperceptibly. 'I was undercover, Farmboy.'

She could suddenly feel the air vibrate with humour around her. 'I beg to differ, Red.'

She projected the full-blown, feared on many a world Mara Jade scowl at him, all the while struggling to keep her face impassive. 'Don't call me Red.' She went silent, withdrawing her presence from his and returning her entire attention to scanning the room.

After a couple of minutes, she felt him again.

Nudge.

She wasn't going to answer him that easily. Somebody in the galaxy had to keep the Jedi Master on his toes and for some Force-forsaken reason, the task seemed to have fallen to her.

Nudge.

She ignored him, rather pointedly.

Nudge.

Nudge.

Oh hell, she could never really stay angry with him for long these days. Mostly. She sent back a thought full of dry acceptance. 'Walked straight into that one, didn't I?'

She could feel him grinning. 'Little bit.'

She let out a miniscule sigh. 'Oh well, back to task.' They both fell back into the most efficient pattern, with him feeling the general air for many possible threats and her weeding them out. Their mental conversation diminished to him pointing out individuals or groups, and her replies, mostly in various colours.

After a while, he decided he would never want to know what 'cold, dirty beige' was. It didn't sound good. After a while longer, he decided he was bored, Jedi Master or not. This, of course, meant only one thing.

'Mara.'

She recognised that timbre of his mental voice, so similar to his spoken one, and almost openly sighed. 'What?' She knew his answer before she heard it.

'I'm hungry.'

'Oh, Skywalker, if only people knew of your crippling weakness.' She shot him another image, this time one straight from her imagination. The great Luke Skywalker, running around this vast hall, trying to catch a floating wampa steak that resisted his attempts to manipulate it with the force and kept moving just out of his reach.

She could feel him smiling again. He did that a lot. She no longer found that particularly annoying. 'That might just wor…' he broke off as the both of them felt a sudden shaft of…'Black', she hissed, and both of their heads snapped towards a nondescript elderly man who had just eased himself into a seat towards the rear of the room.

They had only seconds at best.

'Hold his fingers in place.'

'Dead man's switch?'

'Think so.'

He nodded and held the man's fingers immobile as they sprang into movement, inhumanly fast, almost as one, nearly blurring towards the target, not noticing the voices in the chamber falling into shocked silence as they did so.

For all of that morning, they had simply been so still. So very silent.


End file.
